


snakeskin

by bullroars



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, True Detective
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Daemons, F/M, Gen, Mild Gore, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 14:33:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3414257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bullroars/pseuds/bullroars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marty can count the number of times he's seen Rust's dæmon on both hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	snakeskin

**Author's Note:**

> Did anyone ask for a True Detective/HDM AU? No. Did I write one anyway? You betcha. Is it terrible? Almost certainly. For [Maria](http://acedaryl.tumblr.com). This entire thing is your fault.

snakeskin

 

4\. The fourth time, Marty thinks he’s starting to get used to the sudden shock of seeing her scales against Rust’s skin. 

She always settles wrapped around Rust’s right arm, half of her body still hidden under his shirt and her head resting along the back of his hand, her nose against the tip of the first knuckle of his middle finger. 

The fourth time, Marty doesn’t say anything smart.  (A miracle, yeah, he knows.)  It’s nearly a month into the Lange case and Marty’s head is swimming with exhaustion and frustration and slow, bubbling resentment.  His back aches from another night on the fucking couch, and the Chief’s told him if he and Cohle don’t turn anything up within the week, their case goes to someone else. 

Erin has her head on Marty’s knee and her body arranged under the desk, pressed along the side of his leg.  For a second, Marty’s jealous of Rust.  He can hide what he is. 

Then he thinks, _I’m jealous of Rust fucking Cohle,_ runs that through his head with several different inflections (I’m jealous of _Rust,_ I’m _jealous_ of Rust, _I’m_ jealous _of Rust_ ), clears his throat purposefully, and tries to go back to work. 

He watches Rust and his dæmon out of the corner of his eye. 

Rust is drawing.  Marty’d say _doodling,_ but knowing Rust, even thinking of calling it doodling is grounds for a lecture on mankind as the meaningless doodles of an uncaring void, or whatever, so Marty decides to call it drawing in the hopes of appealing to Rust’s particular pride.

(Erin snorts, ears twitching.) 

Rust’s dæmon moves with the motion of his arm, her scales lying flat across her back. 

They look relaxed.  Rust’s probably drawing Ed Gein, or something. 

The fourth time Marty sees Rust’s dæmon is the first time he hears her speak. 

“Think I’m pretty, Hart?”

He’s so startled he drops his pen.  Erin cracks her head on the top of Marty’s desk, then scrambles up to stick her nose over the desk and see this small miracle for herself. 

Rust’s dæmon raises her head off the top of his hand.  Her eyes are marbled and unblinking.  She says, “You’re not exactly subtle, you know.” 

She has a voice like the wind. 

Marty risks a glance at Rust.  He’s still drawing, careful not to dislodge his dæmon, but he doesn’t seem to notice her speaking, or care. 

“He’s not paying attention,” the dæmon says, and Marty thinks she’s amused.  She settles back down across the back of his hand.  Rust’s tattoo, half-hidden underneath her, makes her look like she has feathers.  “Quit staring, Hart.  People are gonna get the wrong idea.”

[Erin](http://mammalwatching.com/Afrotropical/Images/Namibia/Black-backed%20Jackal.jpg), the traitor, throws back her head and laughs. 

 

  1.   The second time, Marty comes home and he’s tired and angry and half-wild. Erin’s claws tear at the carpet. 



He pulls into the drive and sees Rust’s truck and it barely registers. Rust is practically the only person he’s seen in weeks.  Marty can never get away from him, it seems like.  He just wants to be home. 

Then he walks into the kitchen and sees Rust sitting at his table, drinking his iced tea, talking to his wife, dæmon looped around his arm like it’s normal, like it’s normal for him to be sitting there making small talk with his secrets out where everyone can see.  Marty sees red. 

Erin snarls softly.

Rust gives him a long, reptilian look, puts the tea down, and says, “Thanks, Maggie.”

His dæmon slips back under his wifebeater. 

The second time, Marty is thinking about God and the Garden and Doris Lange, about his own fuck-ups, about Rust’s cold eyes. 

He is thinking, _You know what my wife’s pussy’s supposed to smell like?_

Later, when he’s calm, Erin will tell him that he’s projecting.  She’ll say, “Way to act like a total nutjob, Mart, Jesus,” and she’ll be right. 

But Marty is thinking about fangs and sharp scales, and he gets real close to Rust and snarls, “I don’t want you in my house when I’m not here.”

Rust backs off.  Lights a cigarette.  Cool as a fucking cucumber, bloodless, that’s Rust Cohle.  His dæmon is wrapped around his belly, scales like splintered wood, the color of her visible through Rust’s ragged beater. 

Erinyes shows Rust all of her teeth. 

Rust says, “Alright, Marty.  Alright.”

 

  1.   The fifth time, Marty has been staying in Rust’s house for three days, and it’s the first time he’s ever seen Rust sleep.  He learns, to his delight, that Rust is not a morning person. 



It’s petty, but there’s just something _satisfying_ about seeing Rustin Cohle, Mr. Smartass, Mr. High and Mighty, Mr. Fourteen Fuckin’ Steps Ahead, absolutely _useless_ with sleep.  

His dæmon is curled up in a patch of sun on the kitchen counter, touching Rust with just the tip of her tail. 

(She likes to be touching Rust, Marty’s noticed.  He likes that there’s finally something to notice.)

Rust is half-unconscious over a mug of godawful coffee.  His face is slack, and it makes him look younger and slightly less punchable. 

Marty shoves a plate of blackened bacon in front of his partner, grinning widely.  “Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” he sings.  Rust stares at him. 

“This is the part where you say, _Mom, five more minutes,_ ” Marty explains. 

Rust stares some more.

“Tell you what,” Marty says, snatching a piece of bacon off Rust’s plate, “if you say, _Pretty please,_ I’ll even give it to you.”

“Fuck off,” Rust mutters, finally putting two and two together.  He drinks his coffee and eats mechanically and smacks Marty’s hand away when he goes in for more bacon. 

His dæmon does not uncurl from her patch in the sun.  Erin radiates something like contentment.  All in all, it’s a nice morning. 

 

  1.   The sixth time, Rust is not Rust and his dæmon is looped around his neck like she owns him, scales bristled, fangs bared. 



Not-Rust—or maybe the real Rust, Marty’s not sure, never guessed, can’t tell—has dead eyes and a smile with teeth. 

His knuckles are bloody.  His dæmon sways, every line in her body a warning. 

_Don’t touch me,_ she says.  _How dare you think I was ever sane,_ she says. 

 

  1.   The ninth time, it’s been a decade.  Marty’s hair is gone and Erin’s face and belly are so light they’re almost gray. 



Rust must be near fifty but he looks sixty, or maybe six hundred.  His dæmon is half under his shirt, chin resting on the divot of his shoulder. 

Marty’s first thought is, _Holy shit, you look like a serial killer._ His second is, _I am gonna tear that moustache right off your fucking face._

Erin climbs across Marty’s lap, stands up, gets so close to Rust and his dæmon that her whiskers brush the side of his face. 

Rust’s eyes are still old and cold.  His dæmon is still desert red.  He says, “Buy you a drink?”

Marty says, “Hell no.” 

Rust’s dæmon says, “Actually, you can buy us a drink.”

Erin says, “Just one.”

 

3\. The third time, Erin is bored and wandering around Rust’s living room.  Rust is upstairs.  Marty’s pretty sure he fell asleep in the shower. 

That or he’s taking the world’s longest wank, which is gross, so Marty goes with his “passed out because he forgets he’s a real person and not a robot” theory and watches his dæmon poke through Rust’s pathetic collection of stuff. 

There’s not much here.  Marty’s never liked Rust’s house, has never and will never get used to it.  It’s too white and there are too many books on Jeffery fucking Dahmer.  And the cross is creepy, now that Marty knows Rust is not religious at all and keeps it up due to some kind of weird personal vendetta. 

Erin’s got a paw in one of Rust’s boxes, and when she pulls it out she says, cracking, “Marty, _oh._ ”

Marty goes over and sees what she found.  For a second, it doesn’t even register. 

It’s a picture of a young man and a young woman and a little girl.  The woman has a calico cat dæmon and cornsilk hair.  The girl can’t be older than two or three, floppy-eared puppy dæmon in her arms and a muddy handprint on one side of her face, stretched by a child’s wide gummy grin.  The man has a bright copper snake, her eyes shining from the top of his head.  The man and the little girl have the same rust-colored hair. 

Something in Marty’s chest twists, or gives way; later, after he’s taken an axe to the sternum, he will be able to say that if feels like that. 

“Put it back,” Erin says, roughly.  “Put it back, Marty.”

Marty does.  He doesn’t know what he’s feeling.  Guilt?  Grief?  Pity, shame?

Erin crawls into his arms and when Rust comes down, finally, hair already drying in the sun, the color of his name, dæmon tucked into his shirt, Marty says, “Took you long enough, asshole,” and ushers Rust out the door.

He purposefully does not think about a little girl, and when and why Rust’s dæmon started to hide in his clothes. 

 

  1.   The eighth time, Rust’s dæmon nearly kills him. 



Marty’s _mad._ Furious.  His bones are on fire and his mouth tastes like blood.  He wishes for claws and fangs of his own, for Erinyes’ lethality, for blood under his fingernails and Rust dead, he wants Rust _dead_ —

Rust fights back.  It’s new for Marty because all this time, seven tangled years of partnership, Rust is always evading, always dancing away.  Doesn’t matter if it’s from a punch or a hug—you reach for Rust, Rust is already gone.  This time, though. 

Rust is faster and wild, but Marty eats regularly and sleeps regularly and is stronger, and Erin is snapping at Rust’s heels, his hands, his shirt.

“You _bastard,_ ” Marty roars.  “You _bastard._ ”  He’s going to kill Rust, he thinks.  He’s really going to kill him. 

And maybe Rust sees that intent, or maybe it’s Erin snapping too close, or maybe it’s just that Rust’s mask, the one that fell the night in the projects, is coming off at last, for good, is getting kicked and crushed underneath them, but one second there is nothing and the next, Rust’s dæmon lashes out like purposeful fire, and Marty’s thrown back. 

Rust tosses Marty into the back of truck and glass shatters.  Everything slows and stops.

Erin stands in front of him, snarling, and the rest of the guys are ringed around the two of them.  They all hate Rust enough that if Marty said so, they’d grab him and probably beat him to death. 

Rust’s dæmon is between Rust and Erin, raised half-off the ground, and she is all edge, all razors.  Her eyes flash.  (The eighth time is the first time Marty sees her not touching Rust at all.) 

There’s a gash on Marty’s jaw, straight, as if it was drawn with a ruler.  He is cut to the bone. 

“Don’t touch us,” she spits.  “Don’t touch us.”

They are scraped off the ground and ushered inside and chewed out.  The Chief is furious.  Marty’s still pissed, but his knuckles hurt and the bite on his face throbs.  He’s getting old.  Rust won’t, or can’t, put his mask back on.  He is feral, bloody, and he says, “Fuck you both,” and leaves. 

Marty doesn’t see him again for ten years. 

At the hospital, they stitch up his jaw.  The doctor asks what bit him.

“You’re lucky,” the doctor says, finally, when Marty describes what kind of snake Rust’s dæmon is.  A bush viper.  Seven years, and he never thought to ask.  Erinyes has yet to stop growling. 

“Yeah?” 

“If she had used venom, you’d be dead.”

Marty laughs and laughs.  “What d’you know,” he tells Erin, one hand tangled in her fur, the other cradling his jaw.  “Rust’s not so much of an asshole after all.”

 

1\. The first time, they are in the car and Marty is aggressively enjoying silent reflection. 

Erin has been relegated to the backseat because she’s been bristling for the last two hours, growling to herself, thanks to some backhanded remark of Rust’s.  Something derogatory about dogs.

Rust isn’t gonna last at the CID.  He can’t—no one likes him, he doesn’t like anyone, there’s no _trust._ He doesn’t belong.  Marty doesn’t know what the fuck his dæmon is—and doesn’t that smart, after three months of being partners—but he sure as hell isn’t a dog, or even something visible, something that can be reasoned with, like a cat or a bird or even a fucking alligator.  He doesn’t fit in.

So Marty’s pissed and Erin’s growling and Rust’s flicking through his notes again, and Doris Lange is still dead and Louisiana is still hot and humid. 

It’s only for a second.  There’s a flash of color, rusty scales, pale eyes, a blunt, searching nose, and she’s gone again, back into Rust’s sleeve. 

Marty opens his mouth, startled. 

Rust looks up sharply, eyes narrowed, a challenge in them.  He’s bristling for a fight.  The sky is the wrong shade of blue today. 

He gets the hint.  Marty closes his mouth and looks straight ahead, and neither of them say anything.  

 

  1.   The tenth time, Marty has an axe in his chest and Rust’s head in his lap. 



Rust is dying.  Marty sees, absently, the gash in his elbow.  Ruined skin and feathers.  His dæmon is curled around Rust’s wound like she can hold him all together. 

“I totally stole your thunder,” Marty tells Rust.  Because they’re dying, and because he’s got nothing better to say, he says, “And your moustache is stupid.” 

Rust might be laughing.  He’s got too many holes in him to tell.  Erin curls up against Rust, fitting herself between them so that her back is pressed along Rust neck to shoulder and her head’s on Marty’s knee. 

She’s too tired to speak.  It’s funny, but in this light she looks almost golden. 

“Marty,” Rust gasps.  His lips are wet and red.  “Marty.”

“Hush,” Marty says.  “We’re gonna add abandoned cult caves to our list of places of silent reflection, alright?” 

Rust, if he hears, doesn’t understand.  He closes his eyes, wheezes, and says, “Marty, I saw—”

His dæmon curls around him even tighter.  Marty wants to reach out and touch her, reassure her, but he’s not in good shape himself, and his arms aren’t working right. 

He thinks he hears sirens, sees light, something, anything. 

Erinyes had closed her eyes.  _Lazy bones,_ he thinks. 

Marty shushes Rust.  He can definitely hear sirens now, echoing off the walls of Carcosa. 

“I saw,” Rust murmurs. 

“Quit,” Marty says, and he runs his hand over Erin’s tough fur, Rust’s fucking awful hair.  “It’s gonna be okay, Rust.  It’s gonna be fine.”   

 

  1.   The seventh time, it’s the muddy years after Dora and before the Fight. After Reggie Ladeux, after Marty kills a man and Rust shoos him away, takes care of everything, but before their Fight. 



That’s how Marty divides his life; before the Fight, and after.  (The Fight’s about more than Rust.  It’s the cleanest, clearest line, the easy way to package parts of himself.  Before, husband, father, respected cop.  After, someone else. 

Rust, at sixty, tells Marty that he’s ridiculous and that life isn’t something you can cleanly divide, but at sixty Rust is softer and more sentimental and who cares what Rust thinks, anyway.)

The stretch between Ladeux and the Fight is hazy, but mostly happy. 

Things are good with the kids.  Things are good with Maggie.  Things are good with Rust.  Erin glows.

One night, they’re all out at dinner.  Marty, Maggie, Rust.  Rust’s date has fled but they don’t mind; Marty and Maggie are drunk.  Erin’s dancing with [Janus](http://birdsflight.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/blue-jay.jpg), big sloppy circles across the floor, and Rust is sober but relaxed. 

His dæmon is wrapped loosely around his shoulders, up the back of his neck, hidden in his hair. 

In two weeks a black mood will come over Rust and he’ll cut off all his hair and show up for work thin and pale and strung-out, but today, Rust looks almost content. 

Marty must say so because Rust blinks at him, slow, and says, “Melpomene.” 

“Bless you,” Marty says.  Six years and he’s used to Rust and his strangeness and his fondness for spitting out ten dollar words.  (Half the time, Erin is convinced that Rust is really just playing a very long, very elaborate game of Scrabble.) 

“Melpomene,” Rust repeats, and his dæmon shifts, and Marty gets it. 

“Oh,” he says, thrown for a loop.  “Uh, it’s nice to meet you, [Melpomene](http://8020.photos.jpgmag.com/3227952_118641_d7b08d2573_p.jpg).” 

He must butcher it, because Rust’s dæmon looks at him with her bright eyes, not bothering to raise herself from Rust’s hair.  “Just Mel,” she says.  “Rustin likes to be pretentious.”

It’s so absurd that Marty cracks up.  Maggie leans into his side, drinking in their happiness. 

Erin hops up on the table, unsteady but delighted.  “She’s got you pegged,” she says to Rust. 

“She does,” Rust agrees, and he even smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Melpomene, named for the Greek Muse of Tragedy, is an African bush viper. Snakes are symbolic of secrecy, darkness, cunning, and sudden violence. In many cultures, however, snakes are considered powerful spiritual leaders and guides and are seen as symbols of knowledge and protection. Snakes are also symbolic of cycles and eternity. 
> 
> Erinyes is another name for the Furies, cthonic deities of vengeance. Erin is an Egyptian jackal. As a canine, a jackal is symbolic of loyalty, dedication, faithfulness, and teamwork, but as a wild animal it is also symbolic of ferocity and hunting. Ancient Egyptians revered the jackal as a symbol of death and the underworld. 
> 
> Janus, Maggie's dæmon, is named for the Roman god of gateways and beginnings. He is a blue jay, a corvid bird symbolic of faithfulness, intelligence, communication, and clarity. The jay is fearless in defense of its family and is known, like ravens, crows, and magpies, to be curious and inventive.


End file.
